LA bike riders suck drivers crap, Buttigieg calls for safe streets for families, and college BMX team needs your help

March 9, 2023 / / Comments Off on LA bike riders suck drivers crap, Buttigieg calls for safe streets for families, and college BMX team needs your help

No surprise here.

Back in the ’60s, musical satirist Tom Lehrer penned an ode to the pollution choking American cities, with the admonition “Don’t drink the water and don’t breathe the air!”

That warning is especially appropriate for anyone in Los Angeles who doesn’t spend their time safely ensconced in a hermetically sealed vehicle.

According to the Los Angeles Times, researchers from the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy have concluded that LA’s wealthier — and whiter — communities export their pollution to the neighborhoods they drive through on their way from here to there.

Which, in most cases, means less wealthy, and less white, neighborhoods.

And that people who drive more are exposed to less pollution than those who don’t, and vice versa. Which means people who walk or bike end up sucking down the crap their vehicles spew.

That, my friends, means you and me. Just because we choose to walk or ride a bike.

Particularly if we’re sucking their particulates as we ride in or through urban communities.

Photo by Khunkorn Laowisit from Pexels.

………

In an interview with Fatherly, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg discusses making it easier to travel with your kids, including making sure families can sit together on airplanes without paying an extra fee, which appears to be the most urgent transportation issue in America today.

Fortunately, he goes on to discuss the need to be able to ride a bike or walk with your kids without getting killed.

And to your question, this goes beyond aviation. We really want to make sure that every form of transportation is easier and safer. That includes designs for roads that benefit safety, including safety for families that are walking or riding a bike together. It’s part of why we’re really promoting active transportation being safer. In our transit, one thing we’re doing for Americans with disabilities is funding the upgrade of old transit stations that are not yet ADA compliant. That’s the right thing to do for the disability community…

I want to make sure that they’re safe, of course, that they can, as they grow up, confidently and safely ride a bike or safely be a pedestrian wherever they go. And I want some of the things that we deal with routinely today to seem antiquated by the time they’re old enough to ask about it, including the rate of roadway deaths. That could eventually, I think, become almost like polio. One of these things parents tell their disbelieving kids or grandkids, that “we used to tolerate 40,000 people dying every year in car crashes. But thankfully, we did the right thing so that your generation sees nothing of the sort.”

It’s good to know he get it.

But we’ll need to keep the pressure on to ensure that commitment to families translates to safer cars and SUVs, as well as streets.

………

If anyone has any extra cash or gear lying around, the Lindsey Wilson College Cycling Team needs you help, after someone stole their gear on the way to this weekend’s BMX Nationals in Bakersfield.

Thanks to Jeff Vaughn for the heads-up. 

………

Transportation PAC Streets For All has made their endorsement for next month’s special election to replace disgraced Councilmember Nury Martinez in CD6.

And they call it a draw.

………

Portland artist Dr. Nik responded to criticism that his street art looked too much like ghost bikes by going full orange.

………

A Missouri cop was suspended after crashing head-on into a stationary bike rider who was waiting to merge onto a rural highway, while the officer was “looking at” his phone.

Not texting, the cop was quick to clarify, as if that somehow made a difference.

Thanks to How The West Was Saved for the tweet.

………

This is what it looks like when a Texas driver slams into your live podcast.

………

Sometimes, its the people on two wheels behaving badly.

Police in England are looking for a 40-something man who punched a teenage boy in the nose after narrowly avoiding crashing into him with his bike.

………

Local 

Streetsblog says plans to reduce street racing in Angeleno Heights don’t go far enough; the neighborhood was the setting for the first few Fast & Furious movies, and continue to draw heavy-footed fans.

The South Bay Cities Council of Governments is introducing a network of streets designed for slower vehicles, like ebikes, with a maximum speed of 25 mph. And marked by a kind of funky green and blue turtle sign.

 

State

San Diego approved a $2.1 million settlement for a man who spent five days in intensive care after suffering facial fractures, a brain bleed and a seizure when he hit a massive debris-filled pothole while riding his bike on Torrey Pines Road, and wasn’t able to work for five months.

Registration is now open for August’s Tour de Big Bear. And with a little luck, the snow from last month’s blizzards should be almost gone by then.

A Dublin website raises concerns over ebike access to trails allowed by last year’s Omni-Bike Bill, even though it specifically excludes trails in state parks and local areas with their own policies.

Tragic news from Berkeley, where a 42-year old man died five days after setting himself on fire on the UC Berkeley campus, despite the efforts of bystanders who used their own clothes in an effort to put it out — and one man who threw his bicycle at the burning man, as if that could somehow extinguish the blaze.

 

National

Pink Bike offers advice on how to not feel stupid walking into a bike shop.

Forbes offer recommendations for the best lights to see and be seen on your bike. As we noted recently, ultra bright daytime lights are one of the best ways to protect yourself, without donning a hi-viz clown suit.

Bicycling looks at the causes of numb hands while you ride, and what you can do to prevent it. My best advice is to keep moving your hands into different positions, and relax your death grip on the handlebars. Unfortunately, this one doesn’t appear to be available anywhere else, so you’re on your own if the magazine blocks you.

A Florida columnist offers advice on how to survive a bike ride in the state, which is the nation’s most dangerous state for people on two wheels.

 

International

An Ottawa, Canada jury has rejected a man’s claim that he slashed a neighbor’s throat in self defense in a dispute that began with allegations of a stolen bike. But he hasn’t been found guilty yet, after his defense team called for a psych assessment.

They get it. A UK advocacy group says bicycling must address its lack of diversity, arguing that “The male, white, cycling enthusiast niche has reached its natural limit.”

Life imitated art, as a British bike rider was photographed struggling to push his bike up a snow-covered hill, 50 years after a famed bread ad directed by a young Ridley Scott showed a boy pushing his bike up the same hill.

Aston Martin F1 driver Lance Stroll managed a 6th place finish in the Bahrain Grand Prix, just weeks after breaking both wrists and a big toe in a bicycling crash.

 

Competitive Cycling

Two-time Tour de France winner Tadej Pogačar topped last year’s winner, Jonas Vingegaard, in a mountaintop finish in stage four of the Paris-Nice race.

Cycling Weekly says Dutch super-team SD Worx looks unbeatable in the early women’s classics.

Sadly, you’ve already missed your chance to own Tom Pidcock’s race bike, along with bikes belonging to Egan Bernal’s and Geraint Thomas.

 

Finally…

Now you, too, can own Audi’s new e-mountain bike — which has a sentence instead of a name — for the low, low price of just ten grand. That feeling when your ebike gets stolen, but you get it back — twice.

And if you’re already an ex-con, maybe leave the ghost gun at home on your next bike ride.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments are closed.

Wordpress Theme by ThemeZee

Discover more from BikinginLA

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading